“Is NATO Relevant?” Sarwar Kashmeri with UK MP Mike Gapes, on Skynews

What’s Next For NATO: A “Reboot or Delete?” Robin Young, host of Here & Now asks Sarwar Kashmeri

Sarwar Kashmeri & NATO 2.0 on Fox News

To preserve NATO bridge it to the EU

NATO used to be the world’s most formidable military alliance. But, its original reason for existence, the Soviet Union, disintegrated years ago, and its dreams of being a world cop are withering in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s Common Security & Defense Policy (CSDP) has deployed twenty-seven successful military/civil missions from Africa to Asia in the last ten years. Through CSDP, Europeans are increasingly taking charge of managing their own foreign and security policy. NATO is no longer the sole and preeminent Euro-Atlantic security actor.

But watching NATO fade into irrelevance would be a mistake. It is a tried and true platform to harness the resources of North America and Europe. NATO’s future usefulness depends on its willingness to accept its reduced role, to let the EU handle the day-to-day security needs of Europe, and to craft a relationship with CSDP that will allow North America and Europe to act militarily together, should that ever become necessary.

It is time for NATO 2.0, a new version of NATO, to fit the realities of an ever more integrated Europe in the twenty-first century.

At a recent lunch with three CEOs, I asked them to tell what they thought about NATO. None of them could understand why NATO was still around. Only one of them knew NATO was deployed in Afghanistan. The CEOs ranged in age from the mid-thirties to the mid-fifties and were as well informed about current events as anyone in America. I’ve been asking my NATO question ad naseum at every opportunity I get. The results are very revealing of the gap between the “experts” and DC professionals on the one hand and the rest of the populace on the other. I also believe there is a clear generational divide on NATO’s future. Witness these two opinions. One by Senator Lugar, a hugely respected voice in the foreign policy establishment, and the other by Anne Applebaum, Washington Post’s provocative columnist.

“The provision of security assurance within Europe has been a central challenge to American foreign policy since 1917. Our continued commitment to NATO does not come without costs, but remains the most promising vehicle for projecting stability throughout Europe and its political fault lines with Asia and the Middle East. . .” [Read Full Transcript] Note: Emphasis in bold are in the original transcript.

“…NATO, though fighting its first war since its foundation, inspires nobody. The members of NATO feel no allegiance to the alliance, or to one another. On its home continent, NATO does precious little military contingency planning, preferring to hold summits…None of this might matter much in Afghanistan, since the outcome of current deliberations may well be some version of the status quo. But the next time NATO is needed, I doubt whether it will be there at all…] [Read Full Column]